Few know the hazards of distracted driving better than Steve Formhals. In 2007, after spending several years and more than $100,000 to build his own airplane, he was taking off from Boerne Stage Airfield near San Antonio, Tex., when he saw something he never could have imagined: A woman in a white Buick was headed directly across his path, a cellphone clamped to her ear, unaware that she was on an active runway with an airplane bearing down on her.
By the time the dust had settled, the propeller of Mr. Formhals's plane had chewed through the Buick. The woman in the car lost one of her ears. Mr. Formhals suffered serious injuries, and his airplane, which had just won a best workmanship award at the Oshkosh airshow, was a pile of twisted aluminum.
Mr. Formhals came away from the incident with a new appreciation of just how unaware a driver can be: "She drove right in front of me," he said. "She didn't even look."
Steve Formhals was taking off from Boerne Stage Airfield near San Antonio, Texas, when a woman in a white Buick drove directly across his path, a cellphone clamped to her ear, unaware that she was on an active runway with an airplane bearing down on her.
Despite its unusual details, Mr. Formhals's crash illustrates an all-too-common problem: Distracted drivers are responsible for more than 20 per cent of all crashes and near-collisions. With that in mind, Ontario has become the latest jurisdiction to ban the use of hand-held phones while driving. The law comes into effect on Monday.
Amrit Toor, a Vancouver-based engineer who specializes in accident analysis, said driver distraction has grown as traffic volumes increase and drivers turn their vehicles into rolling offices and entertainment centres.
"Cellphones are only part of the problem," he said. "You see parents turning around to deal with their kids, women putting on makeup, you name it."
Under the new Ontario law, drivers who want to talk on the road will have to use a hands-free device. The potential solutions range from an inexpensive wired headset to Bluetooth-integrated cars that automatically link with a cellphone and transmit a caller's voice through the stereo system.
To get a sense of how such a system would work, The Globe and Mail tested a new Mercedes E-350 sedan equipped with Bluetooth, plus advanced safety systems: If you wander out of your lane, the steering wheel buzzes. Coloured triangles pop up in the rear-view mirror to warn if there's a vehicle in your blind spot. The cruise control is radar-assisted - if there's slower traffic ahead, the car automatically slows down. If the system senses an imminent collision (as when a driver is headed toward a concrete wall after falling asleep) it will execute an automatic panic stop.
But is it really safer? Are all the devices just a further distraction? Although there is debate on the subject, many experts say electronic integration and digital safety systems are a plus.
"There's definitely a learning curve, but there's going to be a net benefit," Mr. Toor said. In an ideal world, he said, there would be no cellphones, and drivers would focus their entire attention on the road. But since that won't happen, safety systems are the best real-world solution.
"Anything that reduces the driver's workload is good. And cellphone integration is the way to go. Cellphones are a fact of life now. We can't turn back the clock."
In his work as a crash investigator, Mr. Toor sees an increasing number of accidents that involve tell-tale signs of distraction - like drivers who go head-long into high-speed collisions without touching the brakes. "It's amazing," he said. "They had the time and space to slow down, but they don't. That tells the story."
